


OFFNATURAL

by BluSail



Category: OFF (Game), Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: Body Horror, Crossover, Gen, OFFNATURAL, Other, a fun story for little children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-04-26 13:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5007103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BluSail/pseuds/BluSail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max has a different type of grudge inside of him, and well. Is a scary ducky really better than a junk snake?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1- Pepper Steak, starvation one after the other (meat)

Mayview was not quiet at night, neither the humans or the spiritual ghosts that haunted his very life- and it sucked. Sometimes it felt like whispering in the halls to even just seeing things crawling around on his ceiling that literally made sleep feel like some sort of disturbing wide-spread secret ability. Max groaned, pushed his pillow higher up the bed, and wrapped himself in his blanket. The hard surface was normally comforting, but all it felt like now was a giant fabric brick on some construction site, continuously taking apart his mind’s deprivation. Basically, sleep was terribly late for him.

“...This is so stupid.” Ghosts, people, probably the millions of dead bug ghosts that have yet to overrule the world. Everything was confusing, and the people around him were even weirder, even the normal ones. He closed his eyes, and pinched his nose before rolling onto his side, and looking at the bat that laid on his side. He almost grabbed it before pulling away from the cold metal. Every since he brought it home, he’s been partially disturbed at the idea of some kind of being inside of it. Maybe the fact it could technically kill him in the span of milliseconds also contributed to this fear, but that felt more of a natural thing to be worried about. With the weapon close at hand though, dealing with the anxiety of being attacked in his sleep easier to deal with.

‘It’s just a ghost anyways. ‘Never even met the thing’ That by itself had been strange, especially during that split second while fighting that mirror frog, everything had been- everything looked-

His hand grazed on the bat, and the word ‘purified’ drifted into mind. He frowned, then gripped the handle of the bat, and hefted it up, holding it above his head with a frown looking at the metal. It didn’t reflect and only shone in the light, but the dubious grey mixed with the black handle as well as any other old bat if it at least had a few blemishes- but it didn’t, the bat was free of any sort of dents, scratches, and smudges on it. He felt his eyes drifting slightly, and he yawned as he tucked the equipment next to him, and glanced at PJ drifting in and out, avoiding his glance.

The ghost boy hadn’t said a word to Max the entire duration of his restless, ‘obviously not asleep’ antics, but when PJ looked up at his form, he’d shake his head and drifted downstairs again. He’s starting to think he should just ask PJ what’s wrong, maybe just let him play with the bat a little-

His vision flashed, for a second everything was dark- Max panicked and looked around to see anything. The expanse was completely pitch black though, and he couldn’t even see the difference between the world around them and the floor. He blinked, before walking forward quietly. He couldn’t see it clearly, but farther out there was a speck of something brighter, something white. He walked with his bat tightly clenched, and looking from side to side. This was probably that heighten perception Mr. Spender had talked about, or just a really boring dream. Or heighten perception was boring, but 

Coming closer though, it was obviously a lot more creepier than how he first assumed- A man clad completely in white was standing facing him, and to his horror, had no eyes. He gulped and stepped forward with a glance around them- still completely black, nothing to see but the creepy guy standing a healthy distance from him.

‘That has to be my spirit.’ It was obvious in a weird way, but he really didn’t think this was the best first impression his ‘tool’ could give. In fact, this is just making him feel he really should just throw the bat away a this moment. Of course, that was before he spoke.

“I am the Batter. You must be the player- what is your name.” The voice was flat, there was no flux or accent (or proper use of sentences) and Max sighed. He gave a long look at the man-Batter. How lucky can one be that a baseball player sprite found a bat? He towered over him from what he could tell, and was probably still able to see considering he was facing towards Max as if he could look. Max let out a soft breath through his nose, and cleared his throat.

“My name’s Max.” 

“You have the bat.” Max looked at the bat in his hands, and nodded slowly. He backed up one step, and Batter moved one step closer in mirror. “You have the Ashley Bat, when you chose the Aries Card. Why do you have the Ashley bat?”

“Uh...You named it?” the man remained unmoved, and Max looked at him a bit closer, but put a more defensive stance on. “Look, I found it over at the school, didn’t steal it or anything, so with your question solved- Where are we?”

The man just stared down on him with nothing less of a unnerving look before walking past him and moving on to a brisk walk. Max quickly steered to follow, listening to the Batter’s rambling. “You are speaking to me without the use of heightened perception. You are asleep, and must be awaken.”

Max was not going to admit that he was having a hard time keeping up, but- the Batter’s legs were at least half his body, making every single of his strides two of his own. This was getting beyond just the flat voice and lack of eyes, his entire personality reflected nothing but bad news. With the silence that lapped between them, the area around them began to change from the empty plan to having distinct shape. Or least a distinct shape was having a floor and a storm cloud sky and to Max’s horror- He heard whispering as they got closer to where they were approaching.

“Where are we going?” The man didn’t respond, and he furrowed his eyebrows at the spirite. They continued to walk silently for a few minutes, until they reached the end of the darkness.

“What.” Max looked down to see that they stranded on a whole different level of the expanse, where underneath them was a pure white rooms and halls, making the black spread into a singular walkway atop the entire way. The Batter looked at him expectantly, and Max looked back confused. The Batter turned to face him fully, and spoke with a firm grip of his voice.

“You must wake up. Leave now.” Max sweated slightly on his back, and looked down at his feet. Looking at someone without eyes was really starting to unnerve him.

“Look, I kinda...need sleep? You know, still alive and stuff.” His voice grew quieter as he saw Batter’s shoulders begin to tense, and where eyebrows should be, a furrow down. 

“I have meat.” Without even pulling it from his pocket, he flashed to show a-

Max grimaced at the sight, a large steak that was completely uncooked, and still oozed with the blood and a blue glaze was dripping off of it. He turned with a disgusted look, and the batter frowned.

“Eat it. It will wake you up.” Max gave him an exasperated look to both the rotten piece of meat and to the man.

“Yeah, I think that’s more likely to make me throw up.” He pushed away from the man, and the meat to look closer at the rooms they were above from. There was a switch down on the wall, and he averted his eyes from the blood stain on the floor, looking back at the Batter. He stood still looking at where Max would look it seemed.

“Is this uh. where you died?” the man looked down at the spot, and nodded, before pointing at the blood splatter.

“that was the judge. Do you not remember what happened.” The voice didn’t seem to care whether or not Max answered, in fact the longer they stared down the more detached he seemed to be getting. He didn’t move at all, standing stiff and moving only his head to look in different directions, of course he didn’t have eyes so he didn’t understand how he could be looking- He paused and stared at the switch, sitting down on the ledge after more moments of unsure silence passed.

Suddenly, The man turned to face him again and walked to an abrupt squat next to him- He was squatting now, and in his hands was a small pile of white grains in his hands.

“Sugar. Try some.” He thrust it close to Max, and he looked at him suspiciously. Was it possibly to be poisoned through mind tricks? Is that a thing? Who the heck would just carry unprocessed sugar in their pockets anyways? He moved one of his fingers and pinched it, looking at it with a glare. He pressed it on his tongue, and almost hacked at the taste. this didn’t taste anything like sweet, hyper impending sugar- heck, it tasted more like finger nails really, and the Batter seemed to conclude something. something disgustingly terrible. He took the scope in his hands, and with the meat in the other, mashed them together, spreading the sugar all over the meat with a vigor and jerking like movement. 

“Eat.” Max jumped to his feet, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“What, no! Look, I’m just going to go look around here, alright? you can just eat that yourself-!” He didn’t have time- no time probably if all his senses were put on high as the Batter would still move faster, did move faster and grabbed one side of his head in a harsh grasp. Max yelped, and struggled against the towering figure (was he snarling at him? When did those blunt human teeth become jagged) before he felt his face go white at the raw rotten flesh being pushed on his lips.

“Wake up.” Max failed around before The batter dug a sharp nail into his cheek, and he let out a strained cry as he felt the grotesque meat being shoved into his mouth. The Batter was frowning, not even looking dishevel the jerk, and tore at the meat with one bare hand awkwardly and staining his white costume he had on. He tore off a large piece, and soon the piece still in his mouth was making him choke up, with tears in his eyes as the Batter covered his hands against Max’s mouth.

“Swallow. Wake up.” The voice held no sense of the heinous nature of the situation, more like a bored man wasting his time. wasting his time with what? Shoving rotting, sugar coated T bones into a twelve year old’s face, or just being dead? He felt his vision blurring around him, as he felt fingers pushing the rubbery meat deeper down and pushing past his gag reflex. God he wanted to throw up, because whatever was going down his throat wasn’t food, this couldn’t even be digestible.

“Wake up.” His voice was quieter now as he pushed it farther down his throat, and Max swallowed reluctantly. Max was staring up in terror at the rest of the pieces of meat that laid on the floor beside him, and was breathing heavy. He didn’t think he’d miss breathing, but it didn’t last long when the Batter shoved him back onto the ground, and picked up another piece.

Max shut his lips tight, biting them and looking away from the Batter as the flesh was rubbed against his cheek. A finger pried at his lips, and pulled his jaw open and he felt the gross taste invade his mouth again. The reek of rot overcame whatever prudent smell the sugar gave, and Max felt himself losing any sense of time or sight as all he could do was shut his eyes tight and recoil deeper at the taste invading his mouth. He wanted this to be a bad dream, a terrible thought process that would leave him disturbed but detached. Maybe make a joke about how silly he must be to be so scared.

“Wake up.” this was all too vivid though, he could feel blood dripping down his lips and the tears drying up on his cheeks, and he wasn’t waking up, not yet. There was still a singular piece left, and when he opened his eyes he didn’t see the batter or the black area around them. He saw flashes of so many colors that it made his eyes burn and closing them just relived a small portion of his pain. the last piece was swallowed without much thought, because Max already resigned to just lay limp and cough dryly when the Batter’s hands weren’t covering his mouth.

“Wake up.” When the hands release his shirt, Max pushed away with a hacking cough, turning away from him and looking down at the white room with his chest heaving. He shut his eyes one more time before curling up and wiping at his cheeks, still remnants of sugar and grease smeared on. He felt sick, he wanted to throw it up but he felt the forced shut of his eyes tire. 

“Wake up.” Max looked up at the beast standing above him, and wondered if the Batter was truly a man with no eyes.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

He was panting loudly, looking at both sides of him before he sat up and looked to the floor. the bat had rolled down onto the floor in his sleep it seemed, but he wasn’t going to be picking that up any time soon. He sighed shakingly, and stood up with a grimace. He was trying desperately to think of anything but that- encounter, attack, whatever he was going to call it. If that boss leader had mentioned switching tools after this instead, he probably would have taken her up on that offer.

Of course, it wasn’t like Max is just going to chuck it out now that his spirit's proven to be a notorious disgusting meat stuffer- He still needed to protect himself, but from either the batter or the spectrals around them, the line was thin. He grumbled and walked down the hallway with some of the smaller, peaceful spirits walking beside him. He rubbed his throat gently and walked slowly with his body moving on autopilot. The kitchen seemed like a safe place until he’s felt a little less numb at least. He reached for a glass in the cabinet, and stared at the glass for an entire minute, before his hand began to shake. 

That had been terrifying- it wasn’t like all the other antics he’s had since coming to Mayview, where he could turn fear into adrenaline, where he could fight back. There was nothing to run from then though, nothing to fight other than the dread. He looked behind him to see that PJ was huddled under the counter, with only his head peeking out. He swallowed the fear, and gave a tired smirk to him.

“Um. did you have a bad dream?” PJ floated closer and lefty was drifting beside his shoulders as they normally did. Max sighed, and just shrugged to waving his hand in the air.

“It’s nothing I couldn’t handle- Anyways, what have you been doing?” PJ paled, or as much as a dead kid’s remnant soul could, and turned away with his face tighten. He was obviously hiding something from Max, but PJ didn’t seem ready to come out about it yet.

“I, um. Nothing much, just watching Pete do weird things.” 

“Sure. All right then.” Max turned his gaze away, and looked behind him with a raised eyebrow. The room was unusually empty of sprites, and lacked any sign of the normal supernatural life it had crawling throughout. that’s when his eyes rose, and squinched his eyes. “Hey, what kinda sprite is that? hula hoops?”

“What!?..” Pj turned around, and gasped slightly before pushing away. Three, rings were raised high in the air, glowing white and arranged in a simple triangle order. they hummed slightly, and didn’t move at all. Max looked around at the other ghosts moving away from the circles , and narrowed his eyes, but felt a rising panic in his chest. He didn’t have his bat with him, so if these weird rings were going to attack them, he was defenseless.

“Look uh, I didn’t mean anything by saying hula hoops...Hello? Are they even sentient?” The last part he whispered to PJ who was cowering behind his back and shrugged before staring back at the rings. He had his hands raised, and whatever he remembered from isabel about flexing his spectral ooz stuff just wasn’t coming up. He backed away slightly, but that was when the rings moved finally, coming at them at a fast speed.

“What!-” The rings stopped to rest in his hands, glowing brightly once, then faded when they touched his hands. He blinked, and looked back at PJ who was frowning back at him. They stayed standing there shell shocked before Max slouched his shoulders, walked out of the kitchen and fell on the living room couch.

“I’m-PJ this, I’m too tired for this. Night.”


	2. Tender Sugar, bearing reality

“Hey Max, wake up already.” He groaned and cracked open his eyes to look at Zoey staring back at him questionably. He’d slept on the couch the entire night, and as comfortable as it was, it would have been nice sleeping in his bed instead. He scratched behind his head, and reached for his cap, fallen on the floor. Everything felt- fine, like it wasn’t going to go wrong. Normally he’d have the sense to realize that’s probably the most likely to be wrong, but today felt hazy that it didn’t pass his mind much. 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m getting up.” He shuffled to a stand and looked at her when she narrowed her eyes. He attempted to raise an eyebrow, perhaps say something about her god awful teddy bear shirt, but nothing came to mind, just. Ok. Everything felt hazy, felt good though, and that was a bad, BAD feeling- He shut his mouth, and walked away to the bathroom, leaving Zoey to stand confused and shrugged.

‘Just a feeling of course, nothing more.’ It came out as a mumble, and didn’t mean he was reaching the peak of his sanity this early in the morning from talking to himself. He wasn’t going to dwell on it, not when the sun was shining so bright. With the night fresh out of his mind, and hopefully an event less school day (he would not object to ‘acrobatic through life’ as Johnny comes to call it now). Dad of course was somewhere between the shelves at the moment, and if he wasn’t, Max didn’t need to know. Everything was saved except for time, meaning he left early from the lack of scooter from a certain redhead. Not naming anyone, of course.

“Look, space monkeys make a better surprise character than a duck man- oh hey Max.” Ed was talking to his dad while the man was hopefully stocking the store, and just pointed a finger gun at him with a smirk.

“Alright, stick em up. We have to go to school, and he actually has to get money from working.” Ed let out a yelp, held up his arms, and moved away to the sliding doors (“Good luck at school, my lovable spawn” He wonders if only his dad could make saying spawn, endearing). The two of them walked silently side by side, and Max almost felt... awkward.

Isabel or all of the members really were together, so he never really had to have direct contact to Ed Sure, most of his classes conceived of him, but he almost seemed - **unimportant** \- distant in a ways that wasn’t - **necessary to live** \- a good conversation starter

Wait.

“Hey, what’s the hold up, hold up?” Ed’s voice was cheerful, and Max snapped back to him and looked back at his back pack. It was insidious for a simple bat. Sinister, but clean, with the metal gleaming and it’s smooth - **hard, quick to die** \- Ok, that was it, no more clever words.

“I met my sprite last night and what do you do if your ghost might so happen to be a serial killer?” Ed turned his head down, up, then side to side as if someone was listening in. He leaned in, and Max dipped his head down to match his height.

“I don’t know.” - **Lowly, unneeded WORDS** \- Max groaned, and rubbed at his head from the growing throbbing in his forehead, promising a grand headache. 

“Ok, so what about if i just tossed it right now, and find something else.”

“You should probably just give it to Isabel’s gramps, he holds all the weapons we collect- he might let you have another one” Max nodded, coughed, and rubbed at his eyes. He didn’t remember feeling this - SCARED -exhausted, or even the - **TEARS** \- bags forming under his eyes. He rubbed his throat, and Ed looked at him curiously, before looking forward. They walked silently for a short time, before Ed spoke again.

“Any new abilities? You did meet this sprite, might have jump started something.” Max shook his head, before squinting his eyes.

“Actually, it could be these things I found, they’re like glowing circles, and when I touched them, they completely disappeared.” His voice felt constricted, slightly, as he looked to see the school in sight. He coughed, and looked at his- **ELSEN** \- friend again. Ed was looking at him with a smile, and he returned it with a quirk of his lips. Maybe it wasn’t just a lack of being around each other so much, but rather just no time to do so.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Alright class, so we’ll be working on the effects sulfur is going to have with common household stuff, so you’ll have to just watch…” First period was always dull- it was the beginning of the day, but at least he was given the good grace of not having English for first. He doubt that having him first thing in the morning doesn’t make anyone’s day any better (unless you counted Lisa, but she has preferred to say she will use any or all methods of attack, including infiltration, so she seemed to not enjoy it either). 

Today wasn’t tedious enough though- in fact, that weird feeling he woke up with was the cough he made every 2 minutes, and every 5 minutes he felt his mind spilt harshly from some headache. It was like he was trying to explode, like baggy wide eyes or his dry mouth was any signs of huge activity. He looked at the clock, and sighed as he duly looked through the book. For a second, he felt like this was clearly the most important thing in the world, then the moments afterwards said he was shy of losing it all together when his head ringed.

“Alright, so this part, they’re putting in sugar…” Max tighten the grip on his stale throat, and did his best to lighten his breathing. No breathing hard, that would attract too much attention, just wait till you get home to have a ‘first days of school spent sick’ week over. That’s probably what it was, people got sick all the time during school’s opening month. Every little thing in this crazy town didn’t have to be a paranormal event. Everything’s ok.

“They have to be real careful now, since it’s pretty volatile…” He glanced over around the entire room at this point, and looked over all the kids’ faces. Everyone was watching with mild interest of the video, some more studious took to taking notes. 

“And once the solutions been stirred…” Everything’s ok.

“The sugar and acid start to react…” It was just a sickness, and the images of meat and sugar and raw taste and the **mission** came to mind but not after SUGAR. (max vaguely remembered feeling a heat growing on his neck, and tighten his mouth. Everything was forgotten in a second, as he lifted his head back up in confusion). 

“Creating this carbon tower from the sugar- Carbon is basically essential to life.”  
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

He kept rubbish against whatever sand was in his eyes and wrote the equations on the board down. Of course Math is the subject where he has to try his hardest in terms of actually knowing what you’re doing, but he managed. By the way, did any one know that marshmallows are cow bones, sharpies taste gross, and that Zoey liked cheese sandwiches with ham. He was feeling the eyes of Johnny behind his head, and he ducked even more into the fold of his arms. there was only so much one could attempt to distract from the pain and distaste growing in his mouth.

While thinking about random trivia, and maybe creating one liners to be used later, would normally make him feel better when he was sick, it wasn’t working. Actually, it seemed to only make his headaches longer. Whatever cold this was, it didn’t want to will away, only continuing to burn in his throat. He coughed, and turned his page to create the next set of notes.

“Hey Max.” It was a whisper, and he looked up to Cody, a worried expression all over his face. He made a grunt to show he heard, and kept writing.

“Are you sick? You’re looking pretty rough.” He nodded, and gestured in distaste at his throat.

“Oh, i get it, can’t talk. Well, hang in there.” Cody was a nice guy, a bit too polite for Max’s taste, but it was nice having him around.Yes, like everyone he could get intensely weird but that seems to be the norm of everyone in this haunted town. Maybe it came from eating so much fast food since they came to Mayview, but doing his all everyday was probably taking a toll. It had to be, as he swallowed dryly in his throat. A bunch of- Wake up - He coughed once more, and froze when he looked at his notebook. 

Sugar

he coughed up sugar

He rubbed at his lips, and felt a slimmer of the sweets, dripping down his chin. He felt his stomach fall, and he darted his eyes around the room to the door. No one has noticed, and there’s still half an hour left- a half hour left to feel his throat constrict with heat and his cheeks puff with tangy sugar. He licked the roof of mouth, and paled at the feeling of the rough, grains sticking to the top. His chest heaved one more time, but this time he shut his mouth tightly, and turned back to his book. No one’s noticed, how does no one notice-

“Hey MaxPal, you kinda look like you’re going to…” He looked to his right, and almost hurled at the sick sounds Jeff made. He covered his mouth and looked back up at the board. Ms. Baxter’s back was turned, but her shoulders were bunched with a look of growing annoyance. He ducked his head and didn’t think when he hacked again and he would’ve thrown up but for sheer will when he looked at the spray it caused on his notebook. How could you not see it? 

why did he have to see this? 

There was 28 minutes left in class  
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
Cody was worried- He was always the friend to worry about friends, especially sick friends, but it didn’t seem like that Max had was just common sniffles. Jeff was right, he looked like he was going to hurl right on the spot, and when ever he coughed he turned away or closed his eyes. Cody was already sitting down with everyone, while he scanned the area for the third time. No one it seems, only the occasional capped kid that would turn out to not be Max. 

“Do you think Max is ok? He was kinda looking off during math.” violet looked at him in interest and nodded.

“I saw him in the hallways, he’s probably just going home early. I would too, with how eccentric some of the teachers can get.” She shuddered, and Cody smiled. 

There was nothing to worry about, since Max seemed to know how to take care of himself. He’ll just lend him his notes tomorrow. “Yeah, he’s probably ok.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick thanks to all those who have been reading this so far, and of course to my beta readers (whom wish to be unnamed) for bearing through the worst of my errors. This chapter is sadly lacking in the length and content i wanted it to be, so hopefully i'll be adding the rest as well with the chapter picture on monday. :)


	3. A sad thing

An series of events have happened, and it’s led me to put OFFNATURAL on a stop despite it just starting :( I don’t want to put out quarter baked chapters to you guys, so i’ll now just be doing pics. I won’t be able to confirm when chapters and covers will be posted yet.

I apologize severely, but I promise when this is over, offnatural will continue very strong!


	4. THIS HAS BECOME A COMIC!!!

this fic will remain down, i will continue the story as a comic instead (i much prefer drawing, so my greatest apologies to those who prefer reading). 

A thank you to all of you for having read this and supporting me. I have been struggling with personal life, and now that this is coming back, i hope we can continue as well as we can

I’ll post the first two pages tomorrow, on tumblr in the offnatural tag like the cover pages, as a thank you for waiting so long and on Thursday another two pages. Singular pages will be posted after this week on the same schedule as this was

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'd like to thank you for reading this fic as it is, and i will enjoy myself thoroughly as we go travel through this plotty idea! I'd like to make a quick thank you to a dear friend who has beta read this story before i embarrass myself by misspelling or placing strange words for descriptive measures.
> 
> Updates will be happening on Thursdays to Wednesdays, and for you tumblr users, a cover picture will be posted under Blusail on mondays, on tumblr in the OFFNATURAL tag. :)


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